Team 5 Investigates' Kathy Curran revealed who’s getting this precious perk and why efforts to get rid of it have gone nowhere.

For many people, the commute to and from work can be a killer, and so can the cost. Between car payments, the price of gas, MBTA passes and bike tires, a 2010 study by the Urban Land Institute shows the average household spends $11,927 on transportation.

But Team 5 Investigates found thousands of MBTA workers and retirees riding everywhere they want for free.

"It’s certainly a great perk if you can get it," said Mary Connaughton of the Pioneer Institute, a government watchdog group.

Last year, retirees and current MBTA employees took a total of 2,318,222 trips costing at least $4.6 million. A spokesman for the agency told Team 5 Investigates it amounts to less than 1 percent of its total transactions last year.

"It's not unusual for organizations or businesses to give their employees some sort of discount off the goods and services that they sell. But 100 percent, I don’t know any organizations that do that," said Connaughton.

This comes at a time when the debt-ridden agency is contemplating increasing fares to help balance its budget.

Team 5 Investigates' review of MBTA records found the agency also gave away more than 8,000 passes for free rides to interns, state workers, police at Northeastern University, Boston public schools, nonprofits and the politically connected along with many more.

The MBTA told Team 5 unpaid interns are granted access to the system for their work at the MBTA and the agency issues passes to individuals who ensure safety.

All of it has flown under the public's radar for years.

"There’s perfectly good reason to have those types of programs in place, but let's just make it very transparent so the public knows what’s going on," said Connaughton.

For example, the Charles E. Brown Middle School in Newton requested an entire train to transport 300 students and their chaperones to the AIDS walk last year.

In a written statement, the agency said it's "pleased to provide passes to youth groups and community organizations that promote programs designed to improve the quality of life for families throughout the area."

"In theory, it's a nice thing to do, but I don’t think it should be allowed. To tie up a whole train, I mean, it’s ludicrous,”"said state Rep. Stephen Howitt (R-Seekonk).

Howitt tried to put the brakes on the free rides for employees and retirees last year. But his proposal didn’t go anywhere because he said the MBTA's unions put up too much of a fight.

"It was explained to me at that hearing that the ridership of the retirees and the MBTA employees was all part of collective bargaining and it would be up to the MBTA to solve that issue when they renewed the contract."

MBTA officials declined Team 5's request for an on camera interview. Joe Pesaturo, a spokesman for the agency, told us they haven't tried to eliminate this perk because access to MBTA services is part of the negotiated compensation employees and retirees receive.

Pesaturo said if part of this compensation package is taken away, then the unions will want something in return, such as higher wages.